The present invention generally provides methods and systems for facilitating messaging and messaging related services in a television environment. More specifically, the present invention provides methods and systems that facilitate the interaction between messaging and television platforms to allow for interaction between users in a television environment.
Systems for distributing TV content are generally well known to those of skill in the art. Over the past several decades, the number of systems designed for the distribution and consumption of TV content has proliferated, while the number of available channels of TV content has skyrocketed. For example, viewers are now able to consume TV content over cable, over the air broadcast, satellite, fiber optic, as well as other point (and multipoint) to multipoint distribution systems, each potentially offering several hundred channels of scheduled and on-demand TV content. Consumers have had difficulty in effectively utilizing the pool of available TV content due to a lack of useful tools for analyzing programming to determine the TV content that is potentially the most enjoyable to the user. Furthermore, the viewing of TV content has heretofore been an essentially solitary experience outside of viewing TV content with another individual located at the same location.
Messaging services, as well as platforms for providing the same, are also well know to those of skill in the art. A messaging platform provides a foundation for shared communications between users and allows a user to identify one or more “buddies”, which are users of the messaging platform who are in a given user's social network. For example, two users using a messaging client, each in communication with a messaging server, may exchange instant message communications between their respective clients. Using messenger clients and servers, users may also engage in a shared web browsing experience, as well as sharing other applications. Unfortunately, there are no techniques for implementing the shared experience and interactivity with other users of a messaging platform when viewing TV content.
In order to overcome these shortcomings and other problems associated with existing apparatuses and techniques for viewing TV content and interacting with messaging platforms, embodiments of the present invention provide systems and methods for both a shared viewing experience of TV content, as well as providing messenger and messenger related services and content within the framework of viewing TV content, in addition to other improvements to the art.